Posts Tagged ‘TED’

Yasmin Ahmad at TEDxKL

Posted on 26/7/2009, 10:17 pm, by Colin Charles, under General.

Yasmin Ahmad passed away recently, and I guess I was lucky to hear her speak. Her inspiring talk was given at TEDxKualaLumpur, on 3rd June 2009 and in my books, was the best talk of TEDxKL.

There is supposed to be video, but that never made it online as of yet, so while this isn’t a transcript, these are excerpted from my notebook.

  • How do you choose an actor? charisma. You need to display charisma.
  • Learn to let go – “empty yourself”. The advice here is to create great stuff, then move back. Its the key to happiness. This is a common mantra in Zen Buddhism.
  • Observe.
  • Remove one’s arrogance, and once self importance. You’ll then be part of something larger.
  • “I don’t know anything about film making. I just empty myself.”

Her talk garnered many laughs from the crowd. She didn’t stick around for TEDxKL much, rushing on to her next gig, but I think her talk certainly moved people in the audience.

I haven’t had the chance to watch any of her movies yet (I was just a fan of her inter-racial 1Malaysia muhibbah styled-ads). Surprised I was that none of them made it to the Malaysian Film Festival held two years ago in Melbourne. They’re high on my to-buy-and-watch list now, so I do hope the local Speedy has her DVDs in stock.

Update: (30/07/2009) Her video from the talk has made it online!


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TEDx Kuala Lumpur

Posted on 27/5/2009, 5:39 am, by Colin Charles, under General.

A fan of TED? Yes, ideas worth spreading, question is when I can ever actually attend a TED event… And therein comes TEDx, which is an independently organised TED event. TEDx Kuala Lumpur is happening next week, on Wednesday, June 3, 2009, from 3-6pm, at the Plug&Play Technology Centre, at The Gardens, in MidValley.

I am so, definitely going to be there. If you’re in Kuala Lumpur on June 3 2009, you should definitely be there too! Pray tell, what else could be occupying your time then? ;-)

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What leads people to success?

Posted on 16/4/2009, 4:17 pm, by Colin Charles, under General.

This is one of the better three and a half minute videos out there (like a lightning talk), by Richard St. John, at TED, titled The Secrets of success in 8 words, 3 minutes. Watch it. Its summed up as:

  1. passion: do it for love not for money
  2. work: its all hard work. nothing comes easily, but you have fun nonetheless
  3. good: practice, practice, practice, and be damn good at it
  4. focus: focus yourself on one thing
  5. push: push yourself. physically, mentally, just push through shyness and self-doubt
  6. serve: serve others something of value
  7. ideas: listen, observe, be curious, ask questions, problem solve, make connections
  8. persist: persistence is the number one reason for success

Thanks to @blogjunkie for pointing this out.

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On pitching to VCs

Posted on 22/10/2008, 11:07 pm, by Colin Charles, under General.

I give a lot of talks, but not a lot of pitches to VCs. But if I were planning to, I’d definitely recommend you to watch David S. Rose on pitching to VCs from TED. It’ll eat up fifteen minutes of your life, but the pitch coach, is simply fabulous. Heck, you can learn a thing or two for normal presentations too…

I took some notes:

* People – convince them that you are the people and convince them you are the one they are going to invest it
** 15-30 minutes at most
* Convey integrity, passion, experience, knowledge, skill, leadership, commitment, vision, realism, coach-ability (ability to listen)
* Business models, financial requirements – this is normal
* Timeline: 10-30s to get attention (grab the emotional attention), and keep on getting better, better, better, and then knock them out. A logical progression (think like a staircase)
** validation, believable upside (don’t lie!), things I know or understand, things that make one think, no typos/errors/etc.
* when speaking? use images, or something like what steve jobs does
* slide deck: company logo, business overview, management team, market, product, business model, strategic relationships, competition, barriers to entry, financial overview, use of proceeds, capital & valuation
* always use presentation mode, always use a remote control, hand outs are NOT your presentation (lots more information as it has to stand without you), don’t read your speech, never, ever look at the screen

Thanks to @ditesh for pointing this out.

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